It seems John McCain just voted against a bill that would have banned waterboarding. Straight talk you can use!
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McCain for Torture
13 Feb 2008 05:56 pm
Comments (115)
Does anyone know which specific forms of torture were used on McCain? Was waterboarding one of them? If it was, that question is going to come up: whether or not he thinks what happened to him was torture or was morally neutral.
My friends, we have to give the government the tools it needs to do the job. Tying our hands behind our backs in the fight against terrorism would be suicide, my friends. God bless the USA.
I clicked the link, and it goes to Brian Beutler, who says, "The Senate just voted the Intelligence authorization conference package out of the Senate. It included a provision banning the use of waterboarding by universalizing the interrogation tactics in the Army Field Manual."
What were the other provisions? Anyone know? 'Cause there isn't a link anywhere on that page or this one to the vote...A little more research is in order; not because I think McCain will be exonerated, but because I've seen enough sloppiness in the ways people describe McCain's record...
I at one time admired McCain too....a very long time ago...I no longer trust that man.
He caved to Bush on the torture bill...he claims he is anti-torture but said nothing when Bush did one of his famous signing statements on the torture bill..thereby making the bill null and void.
Does anyone know which specific forms of torture were used on McCain? Was waterboarding one of them? If it was, that question is going to come up: whether or not he thinks what happened to him was torture or was morally neutral.
So the only options are "torture" and "morally neutral?"
Even the U.N. Convention Against Torture doesn't define waterboarding as torture if it's used as a "legal sanction."
"Does anyone know which specific forms of torture were used on McCain?"
He wasn't waterboarded. I don't think the North Vietnamese ever used that technique. They typically hung people by their arms and beat them. And they starved them, of course.
This is a suprise? McCain voted for the MCA too. So his pro-water boarding stance is nothing new. Don't let the TradMed fool you.
I voted for him in the 2000 Republican primary (it was a no party rej state, Georgia). He's really disgraced himself the past few years, starting with supporting the tax cuts and now with this kind of thing.
It's sad.
So the only options are "rape" and "consensual sex?"
When big bad John gets to the White House, the ragheads better watch out. No more Mr. nice guy.
Mixner, I'm guessing you're referring to this passage
Article I1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
All this does is separate torture for the purpose of obtaining information or confessions from corporal punishment. Clearly, the Administration claims waterboarding was done to obtain info, and equally clearly, waterboarding would be a completely absurd penalty for any sort of non-capital crime.
I agree with the U.N. definition. Waterboarding is not torture when used as lawful punishment.
You know the big question for me and I'm surprised no one's asked it yet: how well will the whole clenched teeth "my friends, bad thing X (rampant unfettered immigration, a hundred years in Iraq, the complete loss of our industrial base) will happen" thing. Won't people get sick of it after a few months?
There's a reason Wilfred Brimely has trouble finding work these days, you know. And it isn't because he doesn't have the acting chops.
I think I see an oatmeal commercial in John McCain's future.
Yeah, because that was the only provision in the bill and the only possible rationale for his "no" vote.
You can't possibly be this stupid.
consum,
All this does is separate torture for the purpose of obtaining information or confessions from corporal punishment.
No, it says that waterboarding is not torture if it's used as a "lawful sanction" rather than as a method of interrogation.
Why should waterboarding (or anything else) be considered torture when it's used for interrogation if it's not torture when used as a lawful sanction?
Speaking of torture and oher anti-American activities, from Ross's blog:
Censorship
13 Feb 2008 06:07 pm
As regular readers have no doubt noticed, I don't usually have time to participate in the discussions in the comments threads. I have even less time, unfortunately, to police them for profanity, ad hominems, etc. However, starting with the last post, I'm going to make a half-hearted attempt: I've done a little deleting and banning, and I'll attempt to respond semi-expeditiously to people who can't manage to write a post without deploying terms like "asshole" and "douchebag" and "Repiglican."
And yes, I'm mainly talking about one commenter here.
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Is it still okay to make racist allusions to "welfare duchesses with big TVs," though?
Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | February 13, 2008 6:19 PM
I also think that Repiglican is a fair usage, as it's distinguishable from "Republican." Repiglicans support torture and want to nuke Iran. Republicans may not be my cup of tea, but they're not evil. Ann Coulter certainly deserves to be called a Repiglican, and I don't see why Republicans would want to share the same label with her.
Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | February 13, 2008 6:25 PM
Over the years, Ross has tried to police me. I resist these efforts unyieldingly.
Give up, Ross.
I am
Ross Douthat's Hair
Posted by Ross Douthat's Hair | February 13, 2008 6:36 PM
Why should waterboarding (or anything else) be considered torture when it's used for interrogation if it's not torture when used as a lawful sanction?
You're misreading the provision. US law explictly states that "lawful sanctions" do not include "sanctions that defeat the object and purpose of the Convention Against Torture to
prohibit torture." See 8 CFR 1208.18(a)(3).
In other words, torture is never a lawful means of punishment. Once upon a time, this was not controversial.
P: here.
The GOP Senate leadership didn't force a procedural vote on the specific clause added in conference in language similar to McCain's failed 2006 amendment, limiting detainee treatment to Army Field Manual stipulations. So the intelligence authorization (i.e. appropriations) bill went to final passage including the clause, without a point of order being raised, and McCain voted against it.
Lugar, Smith, Collins, Snowe and Hagel voted yea; Lieberho and Ben Nelson voted nay; Graham, Clinton, Obama and McCaskill were absent.
I agree with the U.N. definition. Waterboarding is not torture when used as lawful punishment.
Posted by Reality Man
Excellent. So we query the Islamoid unlawful combatant and if he lies, invoke the lawful punishment of waterboarding, a beating, or bullet to the brain.
(Geneva, the UN Convention on Torture..accept that unlawful combatants amy be given corporal punishment, hard forced labor in pain, even painful if not unecessarily cruel execution.)
The reasons why people would vote against binding civilian agencies to the UCMJ go beyond the Enemy Rights Lover's fixation on waterboarding. Military law and regs are best kept in the civilian sphere.
US law explictly states that "lawful sanctions" do not include "sanctions that defeat the object and purpose of the Convention Against Torture to prohibit torture." See 8 CFR 1208.18(a)(3).
Where does U.S. law state that waterboarding defeats "the object and purpose of the Convention Against Torture to prohibit torture" and is therefore an unlawful sanction?
Even if waterboarding is an unlawful sanction under U.S. law, and therefore not currently included in the "lawful sanctions" exemption from the U.N. torture definition, all the U.S. would have to do to include waterboarding in that exemption is change its own law. Voila! Waterboarding used as a sanction in the U.S. no longer satisfies the U.N. definition of torture.
Mixner asks:
So the only options are "rape" and "consensual sex?"
Uhm, yeah. If sex isn't consensual, it's rape. Why would that be hard to understand?
Military law and regs are best kept (Out of the civilian sphere and civilian agencies tasked with national security and law enforcement.
Military law and rules should apply to our military people, American civilian contractors, working for the military and under military control, enemy soldiers, and unlawful enemy combatants only.
The UCMJ and Army Field Manual on interrogation have no place being applied to US civilians or foreigners engaged in simple criminal activity who are no parties to warfare. That includes the CIA when they nail industrial spies or drug smugglers...no military law should apply to such civilian criminals - just bona fide enemy combatants and enemy combatant support.
The Beutler link says:
The Senate just voted the Intelligence authorization conference package out of the Senate. It included a provision banning the use of waterboarding by universalizing the interrogation tactics in the Army Field Manual
Uh, what else was in the "package?" The way this is written makes it seem that the 'waterboarding' provision was tacked on to something with a different purpose altogether. What was that purpose? This is sloppy work, Yglesias.
Where does U.S. law state that waterboarding defeats "the object and purpose of the Convention Against Torture to prohibit torture" and is therefore an unlawful sanction?
Well that's the whole issue, isn't it? Some people think that waterboarding is clearly prohibited by the CAT and US laws banning torture. Some people disagree.
You were making a different point, that torture isn't banned by the CAT if it's employed as a lawful sanction for illegal conduct. The CAT and the US implementing regs say exactly the opposite.
8 CFR 1208.18(a)(3):
Thank you, pseudonymous in nc.
So we find out that this is an appropriations bill for fiscal year 2008 that funds ALL intellegience activities. An appropriations bill that funds all intelligience activity for fiscal year 2008. So there is no reason, besides loving waterboarding, that someone would vote against the bill.
But wait; all the "good guys" voted for it, and the "bad guys" voted against it. True. This appropriations bill, however, contains all the funding for the "war on drugs" (look in the bill summary), something that I don't think all the "good guys" uniformly favor, that people reading this blog don't neccessarily favor, and that I don't really favor. So you might say, "there's probably more good in this bill than bad, so a 'Yea' is better than a 'Nay." Agreed. However, you'd have to admit that there are good reasons and bad reasons to vote Yea, and good reasons and bad reasons to vote Nay. What you can't conclude is that John McCain voted Nay for the bad reasons. He could very well have voted Nay because he thinks there is too much funding, too many earmarks, etc. etc. You may not like any of those reasons, but they're all different reasons than "I like waterboarding".
all the U.S. would have to do to include waterboarding in that exemption is change its own law
So you agree that waterboarding is illegal under current US law?
One of the main reasons for my support of Senator Clinton is her support of waterboarding as a legitimate intelligence tactic.
As John Locke said brilliantly in his Letter Concerning Toleration, a state that tortures is always a state of hypocrites.
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002387
Plaza,
Well that's the whole issue, isn't it?
No, but it's one issue. You asserted that U.S. law bans waterboarding in this way. Which law would that be? Cite it, and quote the relevant text.
You were making a different point, that torture isn't banned by the CAT if it's employed as a lawful sanction for illegal conduct. The CAT and the US implementing regs say exactly the opposite.
You are confused. The CAT does not say "torture isn't banned ... if it's employed as a lawful sanction for illegal conduct." It says that the infliction of "severe pain or suffering" is not torture when used as a lawful sanction. So if waterboarding is a lawful sanction in the U.S., waterboarding is not torture as defined by the U.N. when used in that way. And if waterboarding is not a lawful sanction under U.S. law, the U.S. could change its law to make it one.
As John Locke said brilliantly in his Letter Concerning Toleration, a state that tortures is always a state of hypocrites.
I wonder if John Locke would have considered waterboarding to be torture. Did he ever define the term in his writings? Interrogation methods, criminal penalties, and prison conditions were much harsher in his time than they are in modern America.
"Torture does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions." 8 CFR 208.18(a)(3).
However, under United States law, lawful sanctions encompass actions authorized by law only so long as those sanctions do not defeat the object and purpose of CAT to prohibit torture.
In other words, you cannot get around CAT's prohibition on torture by simply declaring that an action otherwise understood to be torture is a "lawful sanction." To legalize torture by simply declaring an activity that constitutes torture to be a "lawful sanction" would defeat the object and purpose of CAT. US law expressly prohibits you from doing that.
The sticking point, as you identified, is whether the action in question constitutes torture. As I said, people disagree as to whether or not waterboarding constitutes torture. Some people believe that waterboarding does constitute torture as defined under the CAT and relevant statutes.
However, we are in fact having a debate over whether waterboarding constitutes torture. The DOJ says it does not, but it will not release its legal analysis for why not.
You are saying that the US could take advantage of the "lawful sanction" escape clause by legislating that waterboarding is a lawful sanction for some crime. I am saying that, IF waterboarding constitutes torture, US law would prohibit what you propose.
I find it interesting that embedded in your position appears to be an assumption that waterboarding is not currently lawful, because the US would have to "change its law" to take advantage of the "lawful sanction" provision.
If waterboarding does not constitute torture, than none of this matters; it is by definition not prohibited by CAT or other US law. Thus, whether waterboarding constitutes torture is the whole issue.
However, you are trying to say that waterboarding is lawful, because it would not be considered torture under the CAT if it was imposed as a lawful sanction. I am saying that that is wrong.
And if waterboarding is not a lawful sanction under U.S. law, the U.S. could change its law to make it one.
I'm sorry, but how fucking stupid are you? Torture for interrogation is a violation of the UN Convention Against Torture.
Torture for period is against US law because of the fucking US constitution. Please, go read the bill of rights and shut the fuck up. You cannot pass a law making torture legal in the US, not without gutting the constitution.
You'd really have to be the biggest goddamned moron in the world to not understand this.
Thanks to everyone who has asked the real question, viz, what *else* is in the bill? Matt, it's simply dishonest to talk as if the only reason McCain would have voted against this is the water-boarding. And it's shameful to jump to the conclusion that a guy who was tortured himself, and who's unfortunately taken a lot of flak from his base for being against torture, would so readily endorse it. I'd like you to at least look at the bill's other provisions and see what you think. Fairness towards your enemies is kinda important.
Why should waterboarding (or anything else) be considered torture when it's used for interrogation if it's not torture when used as a lawful sanction?
Exactly. So if I put you on the rack and pour acid on your head - but I'm not "interrogating" you -- then what I am doing to you obviously isn't torture. That's just obvious.
It is also obvious that none of that would even be a crime because there is no specific provision in the US Constitution against pouring acid on people's heads. There isn't even criminal law that explicitly bans pouring acid on people's heads, so it must be a "lawful sanction" under US law -- and, obviously, therefore it would be exempt from the UN's definition of torture.
Some are attempting to the make the argument that torture (waterboarding, for example) is legal according to US law and that therefore American torture techniques do not fall under the UN's definition of "torture" because according to that definition pain and suffering that is incidental to a "legal sanction" isn't torture. Needless to say, most twelve-year-olds could probably see through this "argument."
Plaza,
You're evading the issue. Which U.S. laws states that waterboarding "defeats the object and purpose of the Convention Against Torture to prohibit torture" and is therefore not a lawful sanction? This is the second time I've asked. Cite this alleged law, and quote the relevant text.
As I said, even if waterboarding is not a lawful sanction under current U.S. law, the U.S. could obviously change its law to make waterboarding a lawful sanction. And waterboarding used as a lawful sanction is not torture as defined by the U.N. As Chris Ford said, the U.S. could then use waterboarding as a lawful punishment against prisoners who refuse to cooperate with interrogators.
Your law is the War Crimes act of 1996.
The problem is the proper application of it would lead to a series of executions up the chain of command until Bush was rigged up to the table at Leavenworth.
Some are attempting to the make the argument that torture (waterboarding, for example) is legal according to US law and that therefore American torture techniques do not fall under the UN's definition of "torture" because according to that definition pain and suffering that is incidental to a "legal sanction" isn't torture.
No, no one is attempting to make the argument that torture isn't torture. The issue is whether waterboarding is torture as defined by the U.N. If waterboarding is a lawful sanction in the U.S., waterboarding used as a lawful sanction is not torture as defined by the U.N.
You are wrong, Mixner.
I'd explain why if I didn't feel dirty for even indirectly communicating with you.
Why should waterboarding (or anything else) be considered torture when it's used for interrogation if it's not torture when used as a lawful sanction?
No, Mixner, you missed the point. Under the UN CAT, nothing is torture when used as a lawful sanction. So you're arguing that nothing is torture. That's absurd, so there's probably something wrong with your argument.
In this case, you missed two things. "Lawful" and "sanction". It's hard to imagine a system of sanctions assinging X minutes of waterboarding for infraction Y. It might violate national or international law (it's certainly not anywhere in the text I quoted that waterboarding is specifically permitted), but honestly I don't know because it's so absurd. Waterboarding is clearly not designed as a sanction. There's a lot of things I'd be willing to do if the only downside was a fixed number of minutes of waterboarding. (Sure, maybe only once, but still).
But the big thing you're missing is that interrogations are completely different from sanctions. Interrogations are the things you do before you have a confession, sanctions are the things you do after a trial. There's a fundamental difference in human dignity between "I'm going to beat you until do X" and "I'm going to beat you Z times because you did Y". The former is a violation of human will on the same order as rape. (Which might be why rape is so frequently connected with torture.) The latter make civil disobedience possible--you can disobey and except the consequence. In the former, the consequences of disobedience are infinite, and the compulsion to comply (or at least pretend to comply) reaches an almost automatic, neuron-level need. Homicide kills a person, torture destroys the soul of the tortured and torturer alike.
It also generates bogus info, works as propaganda for our enemies, and gives the government a tool to silence inconvenient information. It's pragmatically a stupid policy. But the pragmatics probably aren't what motivated the distinction for lawful sanctions--it's the fundamental wrongness of coerced interrogations and confessions (which are completely banned) and other unlawful brutality.
Interrogation methods, criminal penalties, and prison conditions were much harsher in his time than they are in modern America.
Indeed: they were the mark of an arbitrary, absolute monarchy. Thanks for stating the bleeding obvious, glibertarian fanboy. Now go and suck up to McArdle some more.
If waterboarding is a lawful sanction in the U.S., waterboarding used as a lawful sanction is not torture as defined by the U.N.
This is doubly wrong. It's not a lawful sanction in U.S. (it's not a sanction at all! Interrogation is not a sanction), and the "lawful" in the treaty is referring to both domestic and international law.
I can't imagine any judge not throwing out a sentence of waterboarding as cruel and unusual.
If waterboarding is a lawful sanction in the U.S., waterboarding used as a lawful sanction is not torture as defined by the U.N.
If torture is a lawful sanction in the U.S., torture used as a lawful sanction is not torture as defined by the U.N.
The problem with your argument is that torture (waterboarding, for example) is not a lawful sanction in the U.S.
"The United States has long considered waterboarding to be torture and a war crime. As early as 1901, a U.S. court martial sentenced Major Edwin Glenn to 10 years of hard labor for subjecting a suspected insurgent in the Philippines to the 'water cure.' After World War II, U.S. military commissions successfully prosecuted as war criminals several Japanese soldiers who subjected American prisoners to waterboarding. A U.S. army officer was court-martialed in February 1968 for helping to waterboard a prisoner in Vietnam."
Not to mention:
1. The federal assault statute (18 U.S.C. 113).
2. The McCain Amendment prohibits cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, which includes "torture or its close equivalents."
3. Common Article III's prohibition on all "cruel treatment and torture."
Not to mention numerous other treaties the US is a signatory to.
consum,
Under the UN CAT, nothing is torture when used as a lawful sanction. So you're arguing that nothing is torture.
No, I didn't argue that at all. I asked you why you think waterboarding (or anything else) should be considered torture when it's used for interrogation if it's not torture when used as a lawful sanction.
Why do you think it makes sense to define torture in terms of the purpose of the action rather than in terms of the nature and effect of the action on the subject?
As Chris Ford pointed out, the U.N. ban on torture is basically meaningless, because its definition of torture rests on the purpose of the act rather than its effect. Any country can get around the ban by the simple expedient of making whatever method of interrogation it wishes to use a "lawful sanction" and then using that lawful sanction against prisoners who refuse to cooperate with interrogators.
The issue is whether waterboarding is torture as defined by the U.N. If waterboarding is a lawful sanction in the U.S., waterboarding used as a lawful sanction is not torture as defined by the U.N.
Posted by Mixner | February 13, 2008 8:25 PM
What the hell does "lawful sanction in the U.S." mean? Police can waterboard a suspect in a crime to get information? Since when?
Wow, I'm shocked Mixner would engage in selective misreading of something to back up his own point.
McCain's just leaving himself some wiggle room because he KNOWS he needs to support torture to get the Repub base behind him.
A relevant question from a Boston Globe Q&A:
7. If Congress defines a specific interrogation technique as prohibited under all circumstances, does the president's authority as commander in chief ever permit him to instruct his subordinates to employ that technique despite the statute?
No. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress that power. Unless the president chooses to willfully violate the law and suffer the consequences, he must obey the law.
jim,
Your citations are laughable. I especially like the reference to the federal assault statute, and the letter by the law professors to the Attorney General. Since when is U.S. law defined by letters from law professors?
Quote a federal statute, or cite case law, that clearly and unambiguously establishes that waterboarding is prohibited under U.S. law. You cannot simply point to laws that ban "cruel treatment" or "torture," since that just begs the question of whether waterboarding falls within those legal categories.
But for the sake of argument, let's say the U.S. does ban waterboarding. What's to stop us changing our law to make waterboarding a "lawful sanction?"
Mixner -
Just read you're response to Consum. It's almost as if the UN convention on torture was written with the input of a country (or countries) who wanted to reserve the right to torture in the future. Which just illustrates that the guidance we need on issues of torture is moral rather than legalistic.
19-0 will be sweet.
Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | January 14, 2008 11:25 AM
Does it feel bad to be karmically reponsible for your team's loss, Moe?
tom.a
A president who ordered the use of an interrogation technique prohibited by Congress under all circumstances could get away with it in a variety of ways:
1. Prosecutorial discretion.
2. The necessity defense.
3. Jury nullification.
4. Presidential pardon by his successor.
If the interrogation produced sufficiently positive results, prosecutors would probably simply refuse to bring charges, and it wouldn't go beyond 1.
Just read you're response to Consum. It's almost as if the UN convention on torture was written with the input of a country (or countries) who wanted to reserve the right to torture in the future.
The obvious reason for the "lawful sanctions" clause is to get countries to ratify the Convention. Without that clause, any signatory would be exposing itself to prosecution for torture simply for imposing penalties on criminals. I'm sure there are lots of bleeding-heart American lawyers who would just love the chance to go to court and argue that U.S. prison conditions, or the death penalty, or life imprisonment, or solitary confinement, or any number of other widespread sanctions constitute torture as defined by the U.N. on the grounds that they inflict "severe pain or suffering, mental or physical" on prisoners.
Quote a federal statute, or cite case law, that clearly and unambiguously establishes that waterboarding is prohibited under U.S. law.
I just did. Can you read?
You seem to think that since there is no law that explicitly names "waterboarding" torture, that it is legal. There is no law that specifically names "repeatedly kicking someone in the groin and dipping them in a vat of acid" torture, either. I guess that is legal then. And no where in the constitution does it explicitly forbid anyone from dipping anyone else in a vat of acid. This leads me to believe you are in eighth grade.
Guys, please don't feed the torture troll.
8 CFR 1208.18(a)(3):
(1) Torture is defined as any act by which severe pain or suffering,
whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for
such purposes as obtaining from him or her or a third person information
or a confession, punishing him or her for an act he or she or a third
person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or
intimidating or coercing him or her or a third person, or for any reason
based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is
inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or
acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official
capacity.
STFU, Mixner.
Mixner, I apologize for picking on a pathetic illiterate bastard with whom I've won every single argument I've ever had, but I can't help myself.
Under the UN CAT, nothing is torture when used as a lawful sanction. So you're arguing that nothing is torture.No, I didn't argue that at all. I asked you why you think waterboarding (or anything else) should be considered torture when it's used for interrogation if it's not torture when used as a lawful sanction.
So if nothing else could be considered torture when it's used for interrogation if it's not torture when it's a lawful sanction, and nothing is torture when it's a lawful sanction, then the implication of your logic is that nothing is torture.
Your error is that not all acts can be lawful sanctions, and in that you fail to understand the difference between sanction and interrogation.
Why do you think it makes sense to define torture in terms of the purpose of the action rather than in terms of the nature and effect of the action on the subject?
Why does it make a difference whether we hold a trial before we execute a murderer or not? He dies either way, right?
Why do we make a difference between killing a criminal in self defense and killing one for vigilante revenge? He dies either way, right?
Well, let me put it like this. "But the big thing you're missing is that interrogations are completely different from sanctions. Interrogations are the things you do before you have a confession, sanctions are the things you do after a trial. There's a fundamental difference in human dignity between "I'm going to beat you until do X" and "I'm going to beat you Z times because you did Y". The former is a violation of human will on the same order as rape. (Which might be why rape is so frequently connected with torture.) The latter make civil disobedience possible--you can disobey and except the consequence. In the former, the consequences of disobedience are infinite, and the compulsion to comply (or at least pretend to comply) reaches an almost automatic, neuron-level need. Homicide kills a person, torture destroys the soul of the tortured and torturer alike."
As Chris Ford pointed out, the U.N. ban on torture is basically meaningless, because its definition of torture rests on the purpose of the act rather than its effect.
Dude, Chris Ford is even crazier and stupider than you are. At least I haven't seen any anti-semitism from you. And, of course, he's wrong in this case.
Any country can get around the ban by the simple expedient of making whatever method of interrogation it wishes to use a "lawful sanction" and then using that lawful sanction against prisoners who refuse to cooperate with interrogators.
Sanctions are applied to things you did in the past, not to things you haven't yet done in the future.
Not to mention all the work everyone's gone to pointing out how very many laws there are against waterboarding and how people have been prosecuted for doing exactly what we're talking about. It's not a lawful sanction, the administration hasn't claimed it's a sanction of any sort (it would clearly be illegal if it were), and being permitted as a lawful sanction doesn't mean it's permitted to extract confessions. You're fractally wrong here. Every single stupid line of reasoning you've put forward here has been completely bogus. And yet you keep going like some sort of Khmer Rouge energizer bunny. That's yet another argument against torture--the people in favor tend to be complete morons, and therefore the people willing to implement it will be the most incompetent and dishonest our society has to offer.
Dude, get help. Family, church, social workers--whatever it takes, find someway to escape from the blackness your soul is mired in. The Internet will not help you here.
At one point I was actually considering voting for this man if Hillary beat out Obama.
No more.
This is Faustian on an absurd level.
Kurzbein-
It's almost as if the UN convention on torture was written with the input of a country (or countries) who wanted to reserve the right to torture in the future.
No, it wasn't. "Lawful" means compliant with domestic and international law and with due process. "Sanction" precludes any act that is done continuously until a prisoner talks. (It doesn't make sense to talk about a continuous sanction for not confessing to a crime you didn't commit.) Both words completely preclude what Mixner is talking about.
There's a lot of people and words arguing with Mixner not because he's difficult to argue with but because he's wrong in so many damn completely independent ways.
Ackerman linked to what I think is a very good article on McCain. Summary: Determining how McCain would act as president has thus become a highly sophisticated exercise in figuring out whom he's misleading and why.
Sorry about the link, but if there's no "tags for dummies" buttons, I'm just outta luck.
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=4a65fb2f-7752-493f-a8d3-7fa4aa5e55d0
Guys, please don't feed the torture troll.
I second the motion. Mixner's definition of "lawful sanction" in this context is so broad as to be absolutely meaningless. Why even bother responding to it?
I'm often amazed how the utterly empty rigamarole put forth by Mixner et al. somehow draws otherwise-mature-and-intelligent commenters into lengthy exchanges. To engage at length on this kind of thing is just a waste of time.
Consumatopia,
Since you've now admitted--in an obviously hastily-written post you will probably come to regret--that you believe there are acts that qualify as torture when done for interrogation, but do not qualify as torture when done for punishment, perhaps you could give us some concrete examples of such acts. Waterboarding? Pulling out fingernails? Acid baths? Rape? Beatings? Inquiring minds want to know.
Consumatopia,
While you're trying to come up with some concrete examples of acts that you think are torture when done for interrogation but not torture when done for punishment, I can't resist responding to the following deliciously batty argument from your post:
There's a fundamental difference in human dignity between "I'm going to beat you until do X" and "I'm going to beat you Z times because you did Y". The former is a violation of human will on the same order as rape.
But what if it is rape? On your account, rape is "a violation of human will on the same order as rape" when used for interrogation, but not when used for punishment. So if a woman is raped as punishment for some crime, that rape is not "a violation of human will on the same order as rape." Only when it's used for interrogation is rape a violation of the will on the order of rape.
Huh?
Kevin,
You didn't read the complete definition. Here, let me help you:
(2) Torture is an extreme form of cruel and inhuman treatment and does not include lesser forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that do not amount to torture
(3) Torture does not include pain or
suffering arising only from, inherent in
or incidental to lawful sanctions. Lawful
sanctions include judicially imposed
sanctions and other enforcement
actions authorized by law, including
the death penalty
STFU, Kevin
Since you've now admitted--in an obviously hastily-written post you will probably come to regret--that you believe there are acts that qualify as torture when done for interrogation, but do not qualify as torture when done for punishment
It's rare that I see someone with reading comprehension this ridiculously bad. Mixner, where do you think Consumatopia "admitted" anything remotely like this? Can you quote a specific sentence or paragraph?
Mixner, I did read the complete definition. People have repeatedly told you what "legal sanction" means. You apparently are capable of reading; is there some reason why you can't absorb what it means, or are you just trolling?
Jesse M
Er, I asked him why he thinks it makes sense to define torture in terms of the purpose of the act (interrogation vs. punishment) and he answered. His answer is nonsensical, but it is an answer. He doesn't deny that he defines torture in this way, in terms of the purpose of the act as well as its effect. Do you agree with him?
Kevin,
Mixner, I did read the complete definition.
Then you should have noticed the definition of torture explicitly EXCLUDES both "lawful sanctions" and "lesser forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that do not amount to torture."
Then you should have noticed the definition of torture explicitly EXCLUDES both "lawful sanctions" and "lesser forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that do not amount to torture."
People have repeatedly told you what "legal sanctions" means, and you have completely ignored it.
Also, the first part of the definition, which I posted above, quite obviously includes waterboarding.
Good night, idiot, you're not worth arguing over.
Gee, Mixner, you seem to have a real problem with the prohibition of torture. Why don't you sit still for a while and think about this obsession of yours--that is, when you're done jacking off to pictures of your mom and dad.
Oh. Did I go too far?
Er, I asked him why he thinks it makes sense to define torture in terms of the purpose of the act (interrogation vs. punishment) and he answered.
Er, but he didn't answer in the affirmative, he just asked some rhetorical questions back at you. So I guess you can't offer a single example of a quote where he positively affirmed that if something is used as punishment, it's not torture by definition? You're just making stuff up, in other words?
He doesn't deny that he defines torture in this way, in terms of the purpose of the act as well as its effect.
So he doesn't give anything resembling that definition, but because he "doesn't deny" it in those precise words, you think that counts as confirmation that he does define torture that way. That's some nice bizarro-world logic there. Here on planet Earth, though, it is generally accepted that we don't attribute arguments to people unless they've actually, y'know, made those arguments at some point.
Kevin,
People have repeatedly told you what "legal sanctions" means,
Ah yes, "people." "People" have also told me that the earth is only 6,000 years old. What does the law say "legal sanctions" means, Kevin?
Also, the first part of the definition, which I posted above, quite obviously includes waterboarding.
Nonsense. It doesn't say anything about waterboarding. If waterboarding is either a "lawful sanction" or "a lesser form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that does not amount to torture," then waterboarding is not torture under the law you yourself cited.
Ok, Mixner, once more time. Let's forget about waterboarding for a while, because the legal logic is independent of it, let's talk instead about electric shocks (as in, you know, the electric chair). If a lawful sanction (as the death penalty by electrocution) requires that somebody be subjected to electric shocks, then it can't be considered torture (if it were, it wouldn't be possible to execute anybody, since most forms of execution involve some pain). But if I apply electric shocks to your testicles and your anus for interrogation purposes, then it's considered torture. You can't make the use of the electric cattleprod legal by declaring it a legal sanction simply because you would need to state which crime it punishes and convict the person of it, and what's the usefulness of an interrogation tool that you can only use AFTER convicting the guy?
"that you believe there are acts that qualify as torture when done for interrogation, but do not qualify as torture when done for punishment"
I would say putting somebody in solitary confinement for 30 days is torture in an interrogation, but is allowed to be used in prison as a form of punishment. The death penalty is torture allowed to be used as punishment as well is the US. However, it just happens that many forms of torture as punishment are forbidden by the 8th Amendment to the US Constitution so we don't use them.
Lastly, we aren't using the methods as a part of legal sanctions. The people we're using them on haven't been convicted of ANY crime. We use it to extract confessions and information which is illegal in treaties we have signed (considered US law) and US Code. This isn't just waterboarding which was used on only a few people, but beatings, starvation, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation etc. Waterboarding is just the tip of the iceberg.
Charrua,
If a lawful sanction (as the death penalty by electrocution) requires that somebody be subjected to electric shocks, then it can't be considered torture
If electrocution is a lawful sanction, then it's not torture under the U.N. Convention when used in that way, no matter how much pain and suffering it causes. Even if it's agonizingly painful, it's still not torture as defined by the U.N. as long as it's a lawful sanction.
But if I apply electric shocks to your testicles and your anus for interrogation purposes, then it's considered torture.
Under the U.N. convention, it would be torture if it meets the "severe pain or suffering" standard, yes.
So the question is, why do you think it makes sense to define torture in this way? Why do you think the application of electric shocks to your testicles and anus should be considered torture if it's done for interrogation purposes, but not torture if it's done for lawful punishment purposes?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Do they?
Because yours, silly glibertarian boy, is engaged in a trollathon that I doubt will even impress Megan this time.
Mixner, you illiterate moron,
Since you've now admitted--in an obviously hastily-written post you will probably come to regret--that you believe there are acts that qualify as torture when done for interrogation, but do not qualify as torture when done for punishment, perhaps you could give us some concrete examples of such acts.
Things can be cruel, unusual, and illegal without being torture.
But here's one. The U.N Treaty clearly does not ban the spanking of children by their parents or even teachers. However, if a policeman started to slap you indefinitely until you confessed to something you did or didn't commit, that would clearly be torture.
On your account, rape is "a violation of human will on the same order as rape" when used for interrogation, but not when used for punishment.
So, again, under your logic, I said that rape is not at the same order as rape when used for punishment. I said nothing of the kind. You're just making shit up now. Well, actually, that's how you started.
Er, I asked him why he thinks it makes sense to define torture in terms of the purpose of the act (interrogation vs. punishment) and he answered.
And you completely misunderstood me. It's not torture we're defining here--it's "lawful sanction". Interrogations come before trials, lawful sanctions come after. There is no lawful sanction exception with regard to coercive interrogations because there coercive interrogations cannot be lawful sanctions.
Punishments can be torture. But coercive interrogations cannot be lawful sanctions. And coercive interrogations and confessions have a special sort of wrongness that goes beyond the pain inflicted. If you rape a man or woman in a coma and they feel no pain, and by some miracle didn't catch whatever you've got, that isn't significant less morally horrific than raping someone conscious. Some things are violations of the human person even if the victim feels no ill effect.
Everyone has explained how you're wrong in everyone possible way--people have been prosecuted under American law for waterboarding, waterboarding is not being used as a lawful sanction or sanction of any sort. All you've got is shit you're making up about what other people say. And it's pathetic. I regret responding to you at all--you're a complete waste of time.
JordanT,
I would say putting somebody in solitary confinement for 30 days is torture in an interrogation, but is allowed to be used in prison as a form of punishment. The death penalty is torture allowed to be used as punishment as well is the US.
So you think 30 days in solitary and the death penalty are torture? What about life imprisonment, especially when the prisoner is confined to a small cell and rarely allowed to leave it? Couldn't that reasonably be construed as a form of "severe mental suffering?" And what about imprisonment under conditions in which there this is a significant risk of rape or violence from other inmates? Doesn't that qualify as the infliction of "severe pain or suffering, physical or mental?" Where do you draw the line?
Shorter silly glibertarian boy, now completely at ease with his savant idiot act:
"Why is imprisonment not the same as kidnapping? Look Megan, at how smart I am!"
Where do you draw the line?
At treating you as anything other than a sad glibertarian troll, engaged in definition-shifting that make Jonah Goldberg look like John Rawls.
Consumatopia,
Things can be cruel, unusual, and illegal without being torture.
What are your criteria for distinguishing treatment that is merely "cruel" or "cruel and unusual" from treatment that is "torture?"
But here's one. The U.N Treaty clearly does not ban the spanking of children by their parents or even teachers. However, if a policeman started to slap you indefinitely until you confessed to something you did or didn't commit, that would clearly be torture.
No, it's not one. You're comparing two different acts. Limited "spanking" of a child is not the same act as "indefinite slapping."
Do you think "indefinite slapping" is torture when done as interrogation but not when done as lawful sanction?
What about indefinite rape? Indefinite beating? Indefinite waterboarding? A fixed amount of waterboarding? Pulling out fingernails? Give us some examples of these acts that you consider to be torture when done as interrogation but not torture when done as lawful sanction.
What does the law say "legal sanctions" means, Kevin?
For fuck's sake, it's not like anyone but you is defending waterboarding this way. Find me an Administration lawyer claiming we waterboarded anyone as a lawful sanction. This is just half-assed ignorant shit that you or some right-wing blog made up--no actually lawyers, not even the batshit crazy torture lovers, are actually claiming this crap.
Why do you think the application of electric shocks to your testicles and anus should be considered torture if it's done for interrogation purposes, but not torture if it's done for lawful punishment purposes?
If you had a device that painlessly (maybe even pleasurably?) compelled people to do whatever you wanted or truthfully tell you whatever information you wanted to know, could you see the ethical problems involved with using such a device?
It is the coercion and violation that is even, not merely the pain of cruel and unusual methods.
I can't make it any simpler than that. If you can't see that, you're just a monster.
What are your criteria for distinguishing treatment that is merely "cruel" or "cruel and unusual" from treatment that is "torture?"
Coercive interrogations are always torture because they can never be lawful sanctions.
Look, I oppose the death penalty and I suspect my standards of cruel and unusual include more things than yours. But the death penalty isn't banned by CAT. Unlike coercive interrogations which clearly are. The question is not why am I permitting more cruel and unusual punishments, the question is why are you permitting coercive interrogation despite it's obvious immorality. The only thing going on here is your stupidity in being unable to understand what people are saying and your moral monstrosity in not understanding the fundamental wrongness of coercive interrogation. And the avalanche of facts and laws and precedents you're ignoring.
You're comparing two different acts. Limited "spanking" of a child is not the same act as "indefinite slapping."
Coercive interrogations are always indefinite.
Consumatopia - Well, let me put it like this. "But the big thing you're missing is that interrogations are completely different from sanctions. Interrogations are the things you do before you have a confession, sanctions are the things you do after a trial.
Hardly. I was tasked with killing without trial, not in self defense, as a member of the military doing duty. No lawyers, no ACLU NYC types, no vigilantism involved - just me requesting a cluster bomb mission on poor small column of innocent Iraqis trying to avoid detection under a highway overpass.
You are locked in a criminal justice paradigm of "confessions and trials". Neither applys to lawful combatant POWs, or Islamoids that are unlawful combatants and outside all laws of warfare and all Geneva POW protections..
Interrogations are what you do to the enemy not to get "evidence" for lawyers who will "try" the enemy...99% of the usual enemy will never face "trial". We Americans are rarely interested in that, as we recognize most enemy are not criminal in nature. We interrogate enemy to save lives, mainly our own side's. Occasionally we get enemy worth prosecuting, but don't use interrogation data in their war crimes trial. Or we get unlawful combatants like the Nazi saboteurs caught out of uniform, enemy spies and infiltrators - that may be legitimately executed to deter others from violating the rules.
Enemy, largely being non-criminals, are not interrogated to get confessions, but vital intelligence that helps us kill them and defeat them. Sanctions on the enemy - killing, maiming, capture and imprisonment - is done for the most part without trial. Many of the enemy are noble people standing up for their culture, religion, and beliefs. Hardly criminals.
Lefties, who operate in an intellectual vacuum on what happens in war, insist on trying to fit one side of a conflict into criminals (usually the Americans are the criminals in their mindset), and the good guys (usually the ones the Americans are fighting).
Consup - If you had a device that painlessly (maybe even pleasurably?) compelled people to do whatever you wanted or truthfully tell you whatever information you wanted to know, could you see the ethical problems involved with using such a device?
That would be a marvellous device that would cut hundreds of billions of dollars out of law enforcement costs and also allow us to rapidly access lifesaving info from Jihadis turned temporarily into "Jihadi-Bots". Actually, some work is progressing quite well in lie detectors that work far more reliably than Gen I through III devices and drugs. The trick is how, if such devices are perfected, they are controlled in civilian life to make justice more certain and avoid fishing expeditions. In military use on enemy prisoners who are outside the 5th, 2nd, and other liberties we don't give enemy forces - I see few such restrictions being imposed on use of such Gen IV lie detectors that avoid torture - although physical punishment and other unpleasantries might still be in use as penalties for lying or refusing to talk and answer more questions....
It is the coercion and violation that is even, not merely the pain of cruel and unusual methods.
Oooooo! Coercion and violation of the enemy's right to be left alone! Heavens to Betsy!
I can't make it any simpler than that. If you can't see that, you're just a monster.
No, someone that is so into enemy rights that they believe enemy should not be killed, interrogated or coerced - and only be held or otherwise punished if they can be prosecuted in civilian court for a civilian crime - is indistinguishable from an enemy sympatherizer or active ally of the enemy. We don't call them monsters, but Quislings and Benedict Arnolds...
Posted by Consumatopia |
chris ford, I have way too high an opinion of the military to buy that you made the cut to get in. If by some terrible error you did, I'm absolutely confident that your comrades would have been safer without you. Certainly Iraq would have. Certainly our nation would be. Certainly the world would be. I pray that you are only an interrogator in your pathetic anti-semite Nazi fantasies.
In any event, I said "confessions or information" over and over again and got tired of typing both. Either way, it's clearly not a lawful sanction. So nothing you've typed here has anything to do with anything anyone else has typed above. Nobody's talking about people on the battlefield--this is purely limited to people in our custody.
People in custody are either a POW or a criminal. Criminals can be executed--after a trial. If you treated someone in your custody with treatment consistent with neither status, you deserve to be tried and executed for war crimes.
It's no surprise that pathetic fantasy chris ford-wannabees is salivating for sci-fi powers to turn people into robots.
Mixner: "Even the U.N. Convention Against Torture doesn't define waterboarding as torture if it's used as a 'legal sanction.'"
Mixner, next to Robert Powell and Chris Ford, you have to be the biggest moron on this board.
If you can name one Western democracy that is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and the international laws of war that allows "waterboarding" as a "legal sanction", name it.
Otherwise, you are putting forth a hypothetical as a reality. Worse, you are specifically suggesting that if some country allowed mass child rape by soldiers as a "legal sanction" that the Geneva conventions would allow it.
Yes, the Geneva Conventions do have that wording regarding "legal sanctions".
First, that has nothing to do with the rules of war.
Second, it is quite clear that the Geneva Conventions and the purpose for their existence is at odds with the notion of torture as a "legal sanction:.
In other words, STFU. You're an embarrassment to this country, along with the rest of the right wing nuts.
"And yet you keep going like some sort of Khmer Rouge energizer bunny."
BVWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
That line wins the thread!
Consumatopia writes: "For fuck's sake, it's not like anyone but you is defending waterboarding this way. Find me an Administration lawyer claiming we waterboarded anyone as a lawful sanction. This is just half-assed ignorant shit that you or some right-wing blog made up--no actually lawyers, not even the batshit crazy torture lovers, are actually claiming this crap."
While I agree with this, I'm wondering why 'topia is chastising me elsewhere for treating the idiot Bushpigs in just such a fashion. I guess hypocrisy isn't the exclusive domain of the right.
Kit Bond - "The bill protects the patriots who answered the call of duty after the attacks of 9/11. The government asked telephone companies to help it track terrorists and prevent future attacks against the United States.
The Senate intelligence committee spent months studying this matter and determined — on a bipartisan basis — that the providers acted in good faith. To say now that these patriots should be punished for answering the call to aid our fight against terror is unjust and threatens our ability to prevent attacks."
Exactly. The government requested telecomms, flight schools, even airplane passengers to step up and help, report suspicious actions. Lefties and trial lawyers seek to punish, sue the same people for "violating civil rights of terrorists". To strip immunity for working in good faith with the Gov't, thus intimidate air passengers who report disturbing behavior like the Flying Mullahs incident, the kid who noticed the armed Jihadis in New Jersey practicing for an attack, the Flying Schools that called up the FBI on suspicious Arabs, and the telecomms. Take away immunity, threaten US citizens and businesses with ruin by lawyer - and we may learn that people will say they were afraid to report evidence of the next Islamoid attack...which will likely blow back on the Left, trial lawyers, and ACLU like white-hot magma.
*****************************
Mixner, next to Robert Powell and Chris Ford, you have to be the biggest moron on this board.
As far as I know, Hack, Mixner joins me and Powell as not stupid enough to be a felon thrown behind bars for several years and thus able to hold a good job and carry his head high. Whereas, you Hack, are just one sorry ass piece of ex-con shit now unable to salvage a career and any dignity out of what is left of your miserable life. I find that amusing. I don't even pity you. You are now just a broken down warning flag to other smartasses...
************************
Consup - Nobody's talking about people on the battlefield--this is purely limited to people in our custody.
People in custody are either a POW or a criminal. Criminals can be executed--after a trial. If you treated someone in your custody with treatment consistent with neither status, you deserve to be tried and executed for war crimes.
Sorry, moron, but your neat little dichotomy breaks down on the fact that Geneva is simply a treaty of reciprocity between signatory nations. So people we have under control of a gun now are not simply either POWs or criminals. Many are unlawful combatants that do not qualify for meeting the conditions of Geneva as POWs - who may be legally be killed out of hand without any "crimnal trial".
Nor is your neat little idea of uniformed soldiers squaring off on a battlefield, with captured uniformed enemy removed from the battlefield and taken to the rear exactly acknowledging the modern reality of assymetric warfare.
Nice to know you want to execute US military for war crimes if they treat terrorists as anything other than honorable POWS or "criminal suspects protected by the Rights they enjoy under the US Constitution. Of course, Consumpatopia - you "support the troops!", right?
The more you talk here, Consup, the more the foul whiff of odor of enemy sympathizer clings to you...
Lefties and trial lawyers seek to punish, sue the same people for "violating civil rights of terrorists".
They have civil rights until after the trial. Innocent until proven guilty--if you can't live by that, you've no right to call yourself an American.
Sorry, moron, but your neat little dichotomy breaks down on the fact that Geneva is simply a treaty of reciprocity between signatory nations.
I guess the Supreme Court had 5 traitors on the bench in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
You have the odor of someone who's just making up their own military service to impress people on the Internet. I can't think of much that's more appaling than that. But at least it would be better than being a war criminal. You're scum either way. Here's to your war criminal dreams just staying in your pathethic fantasies, chris.
I'm wondering why 'topia is chastising me elsewhere for treating the idiot Bushpigs in just such a fashion.
Because there's a huge difference between reasonable conservatives like Ross Douthat (not to mention center-leftists like artappraiser) and outright loonies like chris ford or Mixner.
Blah, I truly hate the far right wing of the party and how corrupting it is to people that come in contact with it.
So, consumatopia, according to you, raping a woman one time, or even just threatening to rape her, as a method of interrogation, is torture.
But raping her every day for a year as punishment for breaking a law is NOT torture, because it's "fundamentally different?" Even if she was falsely convicted and is being raped hundreds of times for a crime she did not commit? It's still NOT torture, even then?
Dude, you're sick. Think about what you're saying.
Good morning, torture fans!
What, I wonder, does the law mean by "lawful sanctions"? Why, lets look at the CAT implementing regulations!
8 CFR 1208.18(a)(3):
Torture does not include pain or suffering arising only from,
inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. Lawful sanctions include judicially imposed sanctions and other enforcement actions authorized by law, including the death penalty, but do not include sanctions that defeat the object and purpose of the Convention Against Torture to prohibit torture.
Gee, that sounds familiar! I wonder if it has already been cited over and over again in this thread!
Mixner etc, please enjoy continuing to ignore the governing law! And have a nice day.
Somehow in Jason and Mixner bizarro world, if I say that coercive interrogation is like rape, that means that things that aren't coercive interrogation aren't rape.
The point is not that things that aren't coercive interrogation aren't torture. Clearly, some of them are. The point is that coercive interrogation is always torture, while punishments might be torture. I never said punishments are not torture. But interrogations cannot be lawful sanctions.
In the case of coercive interrogations, the actual pain and suffering inflicted is not the only reason it is immoral. This is also true of rape--raping unconscious people is still rape.
Congrats on buying into Mixner's broken logic.
UN, could you show us the part of the law that lists or describes the set of sanctions that "defeat the object and purpose of the Convention Against Torture to prohibit torture."? Thanks.
"So you think 30 days in solitary and the death penalty are torture? What about life imprisonment, especially when the prisoner is confined to a small cell and rarely allowed to leave it? Couldn't that reasonably be construed as a form of "severe mental suffering?" And what about imprisonment under conditions in which there this is a significant risk of rape or violence from other inmates? Doesn't that qualify as the infliction of "severe pain or suffering, physical or mental?" Where do you draw the line?"
They are torture when you haven't been convicted of a crime and it's being done to extract a confession not to punish somebody. Holding somebody in prison for life because they won't confess to a crime is certainly torture. It's why the provision exists in the CAT that legal sanctions aren't necessarily banned from use.
"So you think 30 days in solitary and the death penalty are torture? What about life imprisonment, especially when the prisoner is confined to a small cell and rarely allowed to leave it? Couldn't that reasonably be construed as a form of "severe mental suffering?" And what about imprisonment under conditions in which there this is a significant risk of rape or violence from other inmates? Doesn't that qualify as the infliction of "severe pain or suffering, physical or mental?" Where do you draw the line?"
They are torture when you haven't been convicted of a crime and it's being done to extract a confession not to punish somebody. Holding somebody in prison for life because they won't confess to a crime is certainly torture. It's why the provision exists in the CAT that legal sanctions aren't necessarily banned from use.
UN, could you show us the part of the law that lists or describes the set of sanctions that "defeat the object and purpose of the Convention Against Torture to prohibit torture."?
For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.
Consumatopia,
It's always fun discussing this with you because the more you write, the more utterly confused and addle-brained you reveal yourself to be. Torture is the only thing you ever seem to post about in this blog. One would think someone so preoccupied with torture would have a clear, coherent, thought-out position that he could articulate and defend rationally, but your posts always seem to be a kind of stream-of-consciousness brain-dump in which you're trying to figure out what you believe and why as you go along.
Jason is absolutely right. I asked you why you think it makes sense to define an act as torture when it's used for interrogation but not when it's used for punishment. Your reply was a lengthy assertion that there is a "fundamental difference" between beating someone for interrogation and beating them for punishment. So if beating-for-punishment is not torture, because it is "fundamentally different" from beating-for-interrogation, why isn't this true for rape also? Or anything else?
You also seem utterly confused about the relevance of "coercion" and whether the act is "indefinite" to your conception of torture. It doesn't seem to have occurred to you that beating someone as punishment is coercive, just as beating someone for interrogation is coercive. Or that a punishment can be "indefinite" just as an interrogation can be "indefinite." You just don't seem to have any clear idea of what you think "torture" means. No idea of what necessary and sufficient conditions you think must be satisfied for an act to qualify as torture. No idea of how you think torture differs from acts that are merely "cruel" or "cruel and unusual." Hence all your evasion and doubletalk.
Adding to your confusion, you now write:
The point is that coercive interrogation is always torture, while punishments might be torture.
This statement contradicts both the U.N. Convention definition of torture, and the definition in U.S. statute. For an act to be torture, it must involve the infliction of "severe pain or suffering." The mere fact that it is "coercive" is not enough. Indeed, if any merely coercive method of interrogation is torture, then routine police interrogation of criminal suspects is torture, since it frequently involves various forms of coercion.
JordanT,
They are torture when you haven't been convicted of a crime and it's being done to extract a confession not to punish somebody.
Why don't you also consider them to be torture when they are used for punishment? What's the relevant difference? Are there forms of punishment that you do consider to be torture? If so, what's the relevant difference between those forms of punishment and the forms of punishment I listed (life imprisonment, solitary confinement, the death penalty, unsafe prison conditions, etc.) that make one set qualify as torture but not the other? I wonder if you have any clearer a sense of what you think torture means than consump.
Jordan T respnds to- So you think 30 days in solitary and the death penalty are torture? What about life imprisonment, especially when the prisoner is confined to a small cell and rarely allowed to leave it? Couldn't that reasonably be construed as a form of "severe mental suffering?" And what about imprisonment under conditions in which there this is a significant risk of rape or violence from other inmates? Doesn't that qualify as the infliction of "severe pain or suffering, physical or mental?" Where do you draw the line?"
With this: "They are torture when you haven't been convicted of a crime and it's being done to extract a confession not to punish somebody. Holding somebody in prison for life because they won't confess to a crime is certainly torture. It's why the provision exists in the CAT that legal sanctions aren't necessarily banned from use."
Jordan T, despite no doubt thousands of hours of TV watching cops play good guy, bad guy with suspects, plus reading about all the plea deals shysters cook up amongst themselves misses the obvious:
Threats and consequences are an integral part of the American civilian justice system, pre-conviction and post-conviction.
Threats - a hopefully painful degrading death is held out against a serial killer, with mitigation to life with no parole at a medium security, "nice prison" if the serial killer both confesses to the murders and shows authorities where all the bodies are buried so the families can bury loved ones. Threats of savage butt-raping by throwing the prisoner in with the wrong race in prison unless confederates in crime are squealed on. Sentences proffered up of a bearable 3-7 years for armed robbery with a confession and plea deal - but threatening to go for the max of 35 to life if the suspect insists on a trial.
Confessions are routinely coerced by legally accepted threats, police lies, carrot and stick.
I am unaware of the Left being concerned about the rights of common black thugs, felonious Latins, unless they happen to be cop killers or assault white oppressor race women. Or white meth gangs, AZN shakedown specialists - as they are about similar coercive confession measures being used against unlawful enemy combatants..
Consequences - Hard time in the whole for transgressions in jail, confiscation of items, including the sacred holy Qu'ran for attacks on guards or fellow prisoners, punishment diets of bread and water or "leftover plate scrapings loaf". Many argue that the NYC ACLU types helped break down prison discipline and safety in the 60s and 70s by lawsuits to stop corporal punishment, chaining violent inmates 24/7, hosing down the cells of feces flingers, etc.
A pal who stayed in the Service on the Marine side and worked the embassy guard bit once told me that the Europeans, Latins, and Asians that grab some American are far more coercive on confessions and brutal in the consequences it takes to maintain order than the ACLU "prisoner rights"-contaminated American system.
Still, there are prisons in America almost as nasty as the ones in France, Japan, Mexico...not to mention the nations that have had communist governments. No one wants to go to Angola, where the NOLA scum go. No one wants to go to Supermax, where for 300,000 a year to taxpayers after a 5 million to 28 million dollar trial - a terrorist will exist in micromanaged misery.
Plea bargaining is a classic form of "coercive interrogation," and it is ubiquitous in our criminal justice system for all types of crime. The most obvious examples are capital cases where prosecutors threaten suspects with death or a lifetime in prison unless they cooperate in an interrogation. "Tell us what you know, or we'll send you to the electric chair." "Testify against your buddy, or we'll send you to jail for life, where you'll be raped daily by your cellmate, Bubba." Threats of harsher punishment in return for non-cooperation are routine. So according to consumatopia's lunatic assertion that "coercive interrogation is always torture," torture is already widespread in our justice system, and is perfectly legal.
Hey, Ford, one advantage of having been in the joint is that I get to recognize psychopathic Ku Klux Klan asshats like yourself by both sight and verbiage.
Of course, it should be easy given the "Kill All the Muslims and Blacks" bumper sticker on your car.
But you did get something right:
"Threats and consequences are an integral part of the American civilian justice system, pre-conviction and post-conviction."
As I've said, Abu Ghraib was not an "aberration" - it was normal US prison methodology (although the "naked pyramid" thing was a little over the top even for US correctional officers.)
C'mon, Ford, tell the truth - you were only in the military long enough to be "downsized" because you were too stupid to ever advance in rank.
So you became a correctional officer, right? Like most of the wannabe cops and stupid ex-military, that was the only job that would accept a stupid psycho thug like you, right?
You definitely sound like a correctional officer. I've been trying to pin down your profession and C.O. definitely fits.
Unless, of course, you're just another broke real estate agent having fantasies.
By the way, for those who want to know why McCain voted against the bill, according to McCain's official statement, it was because the bill would be too limiting of CIA interrogation methods.
In other words, while McCain is very clear that waterboarding is ILLEGAL according to the Military Commissions Act - suck on that one, Mixner - limiting the CIA to the methods in the military interrogation manual is...not mean enough.
Or something. As TPM points out, it's a pretty confused statement he made.
Survey by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press Oct. 12-24, 2005; nationwide survey conducted among 2,006 adults
Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?
Often - 15%
Sometimes - 31%
Rarely - 17%
Never - 32%
Don’t know/refused - 5%
Fewer than one in three Americans believes that torture is "never" justified, and almost half of Americans believe torture is sometimes or often justified.
Similar polls in Britain and France found that majorities in those countries believe that torture is justified in some cases.
Suck on that, Hack.
Everything else Mixner and ford have said has already been responded to and debunked. There are new misreads though. There always are with Mixner. Like the claim that I said beatings for punishment weren't torture. Find me a quote that says that, Mixner. Point out where I said that. Quote me.
Then point out where the Administration asserts that waterboarding is a "lawful sanction". Quote them. Link them.
You did reveal one interesting confusion here:
Plea bargaining is a classic form of "coercive interrogation," and it is ubiquitous in our criminal justice system for all types of crime.
No, it isn't. You can choose to accept the penalty. Lots have people have chosen to go to prison or die for what they believe, to protect someone else, or on a failed attempt to call a prosecutor's bluff. Indefinite torture like waterboarding, sleep deprivation, hypothermia, beatings, etc becomes impossible to resist for all but superhumans at a basic neural level. You and chris ford not getting this distinction--not even attempting to account for or answer it-- demonstrates an extreme level of ignorance and naivete--like you haven't thought about it at all. Bargaining is, by definition, not coercion. There's a difference between inconvenient choices and impossible choices. If there *wasn't* a difference, you guys wouldn't be so anxious to torture. The torture lovers keep bragging how irresistible their methods are. People resist plea bargains all the time.
For an act to be torture, it must involve the infliction of "severe pain or suffering."
"whether physical or mental". Are you going to try to deny that waterboarding causes severe mental pain? Ridiculous. But, at least when you read the UN you just leave out words. When you read me, you make them up.
Sad. And funny. I don't know what makes you believe as you do, but it ain't logic.
We are clearly torturing people more often than "rarely". With all the detention centers and CIA black sites, probably somewhere everyday.
I think we have sign off for another participant in Let's Kidnap and Waterboard Conservative Filth, my reality pitch to the networks for the summer.
Don't worry, silly glibertarian boy: I'm sure Megan will be impressed by your performance.
Apparently Mixner doesn't know what incidental means. Waterboarding is an act committed to inflict pain. Accordingly, the pain is not incidental to a lawful sanction, it is the sanction and it is illegal.
No, it actually says "inherent in or incidental to", so you've managed to find the one way in which Mixner isn't wrong. This isn't controversial, the Administration has never asserted that waterboarding is a lawful sanction.
I'm only correcting you to make it clear that it's not like Mixner just has to answer one criticism and he's won--he's completely wrong in a number of ways already described. It's not a sin to misread one word because you don't want people to suffer, it's a sin to misread pages and pages because you do want people to suffer.
My bad - and very well said on your part. Clearly if the sanction of torture itself is not a lawful sanction - and it isn't - then the pain itself falls under the very definition of unlawful.
John McCain has exposed who he truly is with this vote. Apparently the honor and respect given to him, even by Democrats, has been completely misplaced. Despite his personal experiences, this vote states clearly that he supports torture.
How can the United States dare to represent itself as a moral leader when it uses torture? It is shameful that any American, especially our leaders, would even suggest that torture is an appropriate approach or a necessary tool.
Shame on McCain. At the CNN Republican debate, McCain stated: "I am astonished that…anyone could believe that [waterboarding] is not torture. It’s in violation of the Geneva Conventions...Let me tell you, if we are going to get the high ground in this world and be the America we know and love, I suggest retired military officers, I don't know how anyone thinks that could be inflicted is beyond me." If McCain can't be trusted on an issue like torture, on what CAN he be trusted? That picture of him hugging Bush really does say it all.
John McCain has exposed who he truly is with this vote. Apparently the honor and respect given to him, even by Democrats, has been completely misplaced. Despite his personal experiences, this vote states clearly that he supports torture.
How can the United States dare to represent itself as a moral leader when it uses torture? It is shameful that any American, especially our leaders, would even suggest that torture is an appropriate approach or a necessary tool.
Shame on McCain. At the CNN Republican debate, McCain stated: "I am astonished that…anyone could believe that [waterboarding] is not torture. It’s in violation of the Geneva Conventions...Let me tell you, if we are going to get the high ground in this world and be the America we know and love, I suggest retired military officers, I don't know how anyone thinks that could be inflicted is beyond me." If McCain can't be trusted on an issue like torture, on what CAN he be trusted? That picture of him hugging Bush really does say it all.
Comments closed February 27, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Unbelievable.
I truly used to admire this man.
But he has sold his soul to the devil.
Disgusting, and truly sad to watch a guy sink so low.
Posted by Eric Blair | February 13, 2008 6:02 PM